Want to make significantly faster Muscle AND Strength gains?
Optimal loading of muscle fibres and efficiently making gains can more easily be achieved when this statement and it’s anatomical and biomechanical implications are understood; there is no push, there is only pull.
When you break down any muscle fibre to its smallest increment inside myofibrils there are these proteins called actin and myosin. Actin “acts” on myosin pulling forward on it and all of these micro proteins bundled together makes up myofibrils which a bunch of those together make up muscle fibres and all of those fibres together make up the muscle and perform the muscle action. So at its very core each muscle is simply pulling from one bone towards another and across a joint, think of the elbow joint and the bicep when a person curls or the tricep when a person “pushes” is really the forearm being pulled towards the back of the shoulder.
Now this might seem obvious or redundant but the devil is in the details, to optimally load each muscle it’s about loading it in opposition to the line of pull with full ROM. Add in strength is built on stability, unilateral movement can create more force production, easier mind muscle connection and expose a weak side rather then the stronger side taking over and lastly add mind muscle connection is key to firing those motor neurons and using motor units more efficiently henceforth getting more out of less weight then you have superior muscle and strength gains to be made.
How do we do this? Well take a movement like a squat are you doing this for quad gains? If so consider leg ext and sissy squats are far superior and efficient in loading and taking the quads through its full rom thus far superior in making gains. It must be noted a squat will have more carryover to athletic ability but that’s an almost immediate carryover so to counter that just add a block of training to adapt your new found gains to relearning squats and you will adapt those gains. For the sake of transparency this paragraph is mirroring what Doug Brignole talked about on the Power Podcast last week. I just heard it and couldn’t agree more as I stopped squatting a year ago to let my back heal from injury and the quad gains and workouts are way better since I’ve been doing leg extensions and sissy squats but programmed with intent to progressively overload each exposure rather then casually do 3x12 as an accessory with occasional progression. intent is everything.
This is a similar message to the previous article on isolation being king however this is more of a discussion on the reasoning. I was inspired to write this when I read an anatomy book a few weeks back however listening to the HubermanLab podcast episode “science and tools for muscle growth” was fuel on my fire so definitely worth a listen. Plus Doug Brignole was on Mark Bells Power podcast and everything he said strung a cord deep inside me and a lot of what I said is similar to his thoughts, I’m certainly buying his book and I highly recommend checking his chat with mark and Nsima out.
If anything is taken away from this just remember there is no push, there is only pull.
Let the gain life chose you,
-Mr Wolf
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